As indoor and outdoor athletic fields turn increasingly to the use of artificial turf to cover the ground, it has become necessary to remove the painted stripes or field markings that are applied to the turf for one event, and replace them with entirely new stripes or field markings for another, different event. Typical of the field markings are the 5-yard lines on a football field. These stripes are painted onto the turf with a paint that is softened by ammonia, and it has usually been necessary for employees to wet down the stripes with ammonia, after which the softened paint has been scrubbed by hand and hosed off. This is a tedious, time-consuming and expensive way to remove the stripes, and it is virtually impossible to avoid leaving a grey film on the green-colored turf, owing to the fact that much of the loosened paint particles are left behind on the fibers of the turf.